'Tales of the Sissy' is a play on words related to Armistead Maupin's novel 'Tales of the City' which chronicles the daily lives of several seemingly unrelated people. Since my blog chronicles my daily life and I am gay (hence the stereotype 'sissy'), I decided to call my blog 'Tales of the Sissy'.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Meeting his friends

Meet some of his friends. It was really flattering to be invited on 4 dates within 6 days, and it gave us lots of time to talk and get to know each other. But somehow this “meet some of my friends” invitation seemed a little intimidating to me. But of course I agreed to it.

I knew Very Handsome Guy had an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a graduate degree in Social Work. I knew that most of the friends he’d talked about were friends from college. So Saturday night after dinner it was going to be me, the 32-year old guy with a high school diploma, VHG and 6 or 8 of his friends from college all with graduate degrees.

I didn’t know what to do to prepare for this. I mean, its not like I could ‘cram’ for a graduate degree.

I decided that VHG liked me enough to introduce me to his friends, and if they are his friends, hopefully they'd be nice like him. So I met them, and they were all nice, but I felt inadequate most of the time. In fact, it would take a few years before I could stop feeling like ‘less’ than them. It wasn't their fault; it was my own insecurity.

The next day, Sunday, Very Handsome Guy asked me if I would be interested in going to some real estate open houses with him. He had been considering buying a condo or townhouse and thought he might get an idea for what was out there by walking through some open houses. I told him I’d love to, and confessed that I used to walk through model homes, even though I had no intention of purchasing, just for decorating ideas.

Visiting open houses became our Sunday routine for several weeks. One Sunday in July (about 2 months after we met) we were inside a house that I thought was not worth considering. At some point in the home’s history some walls had been moved, creating a very awkward floor plan. The stairs going to the 2nd floor were inside a 1st floor bedroom!

Since all the houses we toured where older homes, most of which had lots of charm and character, Very Handsome Guy asked me what I thought of this particular house. Not wanting to sound too opinionated I said “Well, its not what I think that matters; its what you think. You’re the one who’s house hunting.”

His response stunned me. I believe you could have knocked me over with a feather when he said “Well, I want to know what you think because I'm hoping you’ll be living with me, and I want you to like it.”

There it was. He’d said it. He’d crossed the line. No longer were we just two guys having a good time dating and hanging out together. He’d basically just asked me to move in with him.

Really, I’m not sure why this was such a surprise to me. In reality, we’d already begun living together, just not officially. The week after our ‘4 dates within 6 days’ we’d begun staying overnight at each other’s places. Most of the time I’d stay at his place because after work I’d stop by my condo for a change of clothes, then meet him at his place about the same time he’d get home from work. Gradually I began bringing more than one change of clothes so I didn’t have to stop by my place every day. In reality we were already living together, but since I still had my place I guess it didn’t seem the same as ‘living together’. So I told him the truth: I didn't like the house. So we continued looking until we found a house we both felt comfortable in. It wasn't our 'dream home', but it was a great start.

3 months later in October we both moved out of our condos and into a house we picked out together. The following month we hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner, which was attended by his parents, sister, brother-in-law, their two children, two of his three brothers, his sister-in-law, and two of our friends. We’ve hosted Thanksgiving for his family, my aunt, and countless friends every year since then.

9 comments:

I just discovered Tales of the Sissy and I think it's a great read. Your love story's what got me hooked. It's fun getting to know your blogself and I'm expecting to be checking in regularly. Plus you've inspired me to write more about my own day-to-day. Now all I have to do is sit down and actually put fingers to keyboard.

You're even more stingy with the sex scenes and spouse than I am, lol. When he "asked" you to move in with him, I thought, "They haven't even had sex yet!?" But then you slipped in the "spending every night together" in and it made more sense. Lovely story.

Too funny, but I don't think I could tell the story of any of my relationships and make them sound half as sweet as yours, without lying or at least forgetting most of the details! Thank you for sharing this. There just might be hope for me yet.

Who Am I?

My name is Mark and I'm the writer of 'Tales of the Sissy'. I am an out gay man, happily partnered since 1996. I'm a Washington DC native, now living at the beach in Delaware since 2007. Read my introduction here.